BoA To Stop Lending To Mountaintop Bloweruppers
After activists took them on a field trip, Bank of America has pledged to phase out lending money to companies that mine coal by exploding off the tops of pretty mountains. Well, they explode ugly mountains too, but you get the point. [Switchboard, from NRDC] (Thanks to John!)
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Comments:
Uhhh, but I like electricity.
Let's hope they expand this policy to aggregate miners in California...
@Marshfield: It might be economical, but they could at least put the stuff back on top of the mountain when they're done instead of leaving it laying in valleys and rivers and generally mucking up the environment they just invaded.
Let's hope not. I work for the world's largest aggregate company and we have a considerable investment in California.
And to think I blow up the tops of mountains just because I don't like that smug look on the faces of people who climb them. Didn't think I could get coal out of it.
@artki: Uhh, but there's other ways to generate it. (wind, hydro, nuclear, solar, geothermal, biomass..) Time to stop thinking fossil fuels, people.
They punch mountains in the face.
Am I bad if I said liked the mountain more now? Looks like a giant sandbox!
I hate hippies!
@Applekid: You should read "the world is flat".
Actually, you should just read the cover. The contents wouldn't apply to you.
Less coal = less fuel for power = more expensive power = higher operating costs for BoA = higher customer fees.
Mountain top removal mining is a huge problem for West Virginians. The biggest thing to understand is the scale of it. If you can, look out your window at a mountain, or at least grab a postcard. Now imagine it gone, just perfectly flat. The valleys gone too. Think of how much dirt had to be moved and how much energy it took to move it. This isn't like traditional mining where you dig a hole or burrow a tunnel. They literally just push the entire mountain over into the nearby valleys and streams while skimming off the coal. They level it out, plant a bizarre grass-like plant that can actually survive with rocks for soil, and call it an "Economic development site." Of course, that development never happens because in the process of getting out the coal, they leave behind huge leaking pools of coal slurry that have a bad tendency to burst after heavy rains, killing people and flooding whole towns with coal tar. The mining also disturbs the water table, so most area` wells go bad. Of course, few West Virginians actually own what's called the mineral rights to there property, so they they have no control over their land more than a few feet below the surface. To make matters worse, unlike more traditional mining, MTR is so heavily mechanized it brings very few jobs to the area, and most of the wealth from the sale of the coal quickly leaves the state, as few of these companies are locally owned. Prosecution for safety and environmental violations is non-existent. Bribery and graft prevents much of it, but any time a coal company does manage to have a fine levied against it, that operator quickly files for bankruptcy only to reappear a few months later under a completely different name. I've live in Kentucky and West Virginia for ten years now after having grown up in New York and I still cannot believe that a practice which does so much harm for so little good is still permitted.
@Oranges w/ Cheese: Then it is no longer near economical. It's much easier to explode some rocks off the top of a mountain, than drag all the rocks back up, and put them back.
@AlteredBeast: Trouble is that they've just externalized those costs; THEY don't pay for it, but other people do.
@lockdog: good for you, speak out, don't let the "damn dirty hippies" argument shut you up. this practice is horrible.
@lockdog: That's probably one of the more clear and concise explanations of the issue I've seen. Thank you.
@Evil_Otto: No, we absolutely can keep thinking fossil fuels. I am all for alternative energy, but not at a significant cost of energy efficiency. Going through your list of alternative energy, here is how efficient they are:
Wind: Maximum efficiency 50% (theoretical)
[hardware.slashdot.org]
Hydro: About 75% efficient. However this also impacts the environment by creating artificial dams; this whole article is about the environmental impact of certain resource extraction techniques.
[www1.eere.energy.gov]
Nuclear: 98% efficient. There is always the problem of the environmental impact of storing a substance that will not break down for a VERY long time.
[www.nucleartourist.com]
Solar: 30% efficiency. Very miserable performance in the square footage to kW created.
[www.businessweek.com]
Geothermal: No information on efficiency, but thousands of acres are required per household it is supposed to power. We have 34 geothermal plants here in California, and it produces only 4.5% of our electricity.
[www.geo-energy.org]
Biomass: Around the same as gasoline, but as demand goes up so must the supply. This means you run into little dilemmas like farmers making more selling their crops to turn into ethanol as opposed to food.
[www1.eere.energy.gov]
Great! If we take them to see a foreclosed home and debt-ridden family, will they stop making irresponsible loans?
@randomangela47: Crap, that was me spouting what I knew off the top of my head. (And rereading, while maybe clear, I wasn't too concise). Maybe these can help:
Photos of MTR sites
A page that actually is clear and concise, with some hard numbers too
Decent article about MTR and how poverty and mining are entwined in Appalachia
Warning: Linked sites may contain actual dirty hippies.
@CoAMarcus: You do understand the concepts of innovation, research and development, technological advancement and progress, right?
People who chime in with the attitude of "oh, look where we are now, it'll never get any better" and apparently doesn't see the difference between damming a river and strip-mining really shouldn't bother talking about anything remotely scientific.
@rpm773:
I love this way of thinking.
Winter = less sun and less fuel for solar energy = more expensive power = higher operating costs for BoA = higher customer fees = It's Jesus' fault.
@lockdog:
"Of course, few West Virginians actually own what's called the mineral rights to there property, so they they have no control over their land more than a few feet below the surface."
So in other words... they drink your milkshake.
@artki: I like electricity too, but we shouldn't have to DESTROY MOUNTAINS to get it.
also, Kudos to the activists! Yes you CAN make a difference!
Just a note on the Nuclear bogeyman on "What do we do with what's left over?"
We've come a long way since the '50s. The "leftovers" can be used to generate more power in slowpoke reactors. They aren't now, partly because of bogeyman thinking and hippies (real ones, not those labelled so today) and the fact that it isn't as valuable to process the dregs than it is the cream. With regulation, nuclear plants should be required to re-process the waste in these reactors, leaving you with much less radioactive material.
The resulting material, even from a regular reactor, can be stored out in the open as long as a 2 km wide area around it is created (the amount of waste created is so small, this is actually not unreasonable, apart from keeping it from leaching) or it can be stored in a 1 foot thick concrete sarcophagus and you can stand reasonably near it.
Basically, you find an area that is not populated by anything, and you can carefully store the material that, in fact, in the future will have plenty of value to be reprocessed.
Interesting note: It's been decades since the US has built a nuclear power plant. Fortunately, in Ontario, Canada, the majority of our power comes from nuclear, making us one of the greenest places out there! YAY! :-P Electric vehicles charged from nuke plants for the win! I am only too happy that our premier ignored the Sierra Club...
Meh, coal miners, truckers, and power plant workers don't need jobs anyway. Not like the economy is having problems or anything.
Are these pinko commies campaigning against the tried-and-true Earthraper policies?!
@aliencam: Let them join the line behind slave traders, child pornography artistes and humbled Wall Street execs who've laid the global economy bare. Boo hoo.
PS: RTFA - few jobs, less money locally using this method.
PPS: Sustainable extraction not only doesn't rape Mom Nature, but provides more jobs.
PPPS: Yeah, sure. But the glowing faces of all those dirty, victorious hippies? Who could put a price on that? Who!
@shepd: You are correct. We've got giant concrete sarcophaguses full of spent nuclear fuel sitting out in the open just waiting, along with an effective reprossesing plan. Again, just waiting for someone to tell us we can use it for fuel. Or store it in Nevada. Preferably both.
What? Those mountains were a threat to domestic security! Who knows if terrorists are hidin' in them hills?!
If you doubt the scale and impact of these operations, have a look at Kayford Mountain on Google Earth.
Why would they need lending to do that? The companies that mine for minerals are fiscally solvent.
Mountaintop Bloweruppers? It is not hard to find the actual term "Mountaintop Removal Miners"
I went to WV last weekend with my Environmental Club to see MTR. At the site I went to three adjacent mountains were completely gone. There was no semblance of valleys left in the area; they had all been filled. And about 10 miles away from my vantage I heard explosions from more mining on another Mountain. BTW, I was watching from the highest mountain left in the area Coal River Mountain, which was the smallest before the 1970s when MTR began.
I talked with some of the locals and stayed the night in their homes. Their water supply, well and locally treated, was tainted with heavy metals and other organic contaminants like benzene. Their communities were being split over supporting or not supporting a backwards industry that externalizes it's waste upon the communities.
For instance, before coal can be burned it must be "cleaned." to that many of the pollutants that coal carries are "eliminated". The water and "eliminated components" of the coal are stored in Earthen dams between the valleys that have been spared. In one case, one of these dams is sitting right above an elementary school and studies show that if there were a hard rain, the dam could burst and destroy not just the school but the communities of miners in the adjacent area.
Sure we need to think about where we get our power, but we also need to think of people and their way of life. We can get energy from other sources, and we can do it cheaply. Instead of subsidizing uncooperative car, oil, and coal companies we can start working with new sources of energy and reduce our independence. Wind, Solar, and Nuclear are the future.
Bank of America has betrayed America???
*head explodes*
come on guys... Coal is a big part of American Industry
when you sacrifice productivity in the name of "saving the environment" literally reverting technology you know something just isn't right (especially with a big national debt, that is just the wrong time to focus outwardly)
Solar energy can be used in your home to do anything you need to do, and if you stay on the grid the electric company will pay you money for the energy that you don't use. I'd personally stay off the grid because thats the whole point of using something like solar to be self reliant. That 30% is a lie.
I work in the coal industry in East Kentucky. I hear this envirocrap all the time. A lot of people have no idea what it takes get a lump of coal out of the ground so that it can be burned to produce steam and electricity so they can turn on their computer inside their air conditioned home and bitch and moan about the destruction of the environment. If you use electricity you are part of the reason that surface coal mining occurs.
Surface coal mining is one of the most heavily regulated activities known to man. There are thousands of state and federal regulations addressing surface coal mining. So many that we often joke that more electricity could be generated by just burning the paperwork.
Those who say we should have to put all the dirt back on the mountain have obviously never dug a hole in the ground. If they had they would know that you can never get all the dirt from the hole back into the hole. This is due to process we in the industry refer to as "swelling". When you are talking about moving millions of cubic yards of rock and dirt you always end up with a considerable amount of excess material.
The amount of excess material is also increased by the fact that mined out areas can not be backfilled to their approximate original contour. This is because loose dirt and rock can not be stacked as steeply as the original ground was. If you did the slopes would fail (slide off the mountain). State and federal regulations require us to backfill mined out areas to a stable configuration.
All this excess material must be disposed of off the mining bench. To do this we construct hollowfills adjacent to the mine site. These hollowfills usually involve covering ephemeral and intermittent headwater stream channel segments. Perennial stream segments are rarely involved.
The recent EPA rule change was due to conflicting regulations under the Clean Water Act (CWA) and the Surface Mining Control and Regulation Act of 1977 (SMCRA). SMCRA understood the natural of coal mining and allowed for the granting of a waiver to encroach within 100 feet of a stream. The CWA stated that no encroachment within the 100 foot stream buffer zone was allowed. Without this EPA rule change coal mining activities would have suffered greatly and a lot of jobs would have been lost.
Some cry out that we are destroying "their" mountains. I'm sorry but these are not your mountains. A trip to the local county government property office will show you that these mountains do not belong to the public.
Being an insider the best advice I can give people who do not think surface coal mining should occur o do one or more of the following. Pool your money together and buy a mountain. Surface coal mining can not occur within the permission of the surface owner. Buy the underlying mineral rights. Surface coal mining can not occur within the permission of the mineral owner. Invest in an alternative fuels company. Turn your thermostat down in the winter and up in the summer. Practice birth control or better yet have a vasectomy or hysterectomy.
The thing I hate the worst is an environmental hypocrite. I'm talking of those you that use more electricity than I do but complain about coal mining. If people didn't want (need?) electricity coal mining would not exist. My job is to make sure your have all the cheap electricity you need to be able complain about what I do for a living.
If surface coal mining is ever outlawed be ready to bend over an spread open your bank accounts because the price of electricity will go up. Just don't bitch when some poor family somewhere freezes to death or dies in a house fire due to their having an indoor open flame because they couldn't afford electricity. But those with plenty of money will be able to move on to complain about the next hot environmental topic.
Sorry about the long rant, I can't help it.
@CoAMarcus: Efficiency? Is this really important? You need to care more about the costs and impact of the technology.
Wind "50% efficient". Who cares? It has pretty darn close to zero emissions while operating. Same deal with Solar...
Just have to find a less economical way to get the coal out now.